How to Prepare for the UCAT
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The undergraduate clinical aptitude test (UCAT) is one of the most crucial elements of any aspiring medical student’s application to medical school.
The undergraduate clinical aptitude test (UCAT) is one of the most crucial elements of any aspiring medical student’s application to medical school. Forming up to one third of the entry requirements for students around Australia and New Zealand, the UCAT is designed to assess critical thinking, emotional intelligence and non-verbal reasoning through the following five subsets:
- Verbal Reasoning
- Decision Making
- Quantitative Reasoning
- Abstract Reasoning
- Situational Judgement
For more information on how universities use your UCAT results, check out this blog!
Figuring out the perfect study strategy to cover all bases with this exam can be a minefield. Not only do students need to balance this with their ATAR/NCEA grades, but they also need to keep in mind that the UCAT selects for a particular set of skills, and not the ability of candidates to cram content into their heads (as most of you will be doing throughout high school and medical school anyway!). This blog will take a deep dive into the core reasons why you should be getting started on your UCAT preparation as soon as possible, and what strategies can help you to succeed.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the UCAT exam has no pass score. How well a candidate performs on the exam is expressed as a percentile which directly reflects how well said candidate has done relative to all others sitting the exam. For example, a percentile score of 95 means that a student has scored better than 95% of students, and worse than 5% of students. This being said, universities technically do not decide on an arbitrary cut-off for the UCAT before student results and applications are in. They execute a “top-down” approach, whereby they fill their medical school spots starting with the highest performers who preference said university first. The published cutoffs for each year are therefore retrospective and usually reflect the lowest UCAT score accepted that year.
READY TO IMPROVE IN YOUR UCAT?
When Should I Start Preparing?
So we know that the UCAT is competitive, as evidenced by the fact that your score is going to be a direct reflection of how well you shape up relative to the other 14,000 students sitting the exam at the same time as you. What do you do about this? The answer is simple. Give yourself a competitive edge. Start your research now, acquire MedView preparation resources, secure a mentor, and plan. It’s no secret that most students will forget about the UCAT until a couple of months before they are due to sit it. They will purchase some last minute question materials and cram for 3-4 hours per day in the lead-up time. Meanwhile, their grades at school will slip, their anxiety levels will rise, and they will be stressed, leading to poorer sleep, and overall worse performance on the day. Don’t be this student.
Understand that the fundamental pillar of preparation for any standardised exam is consistency, over a long period of time. This way, you develop skills, and the practice becomes part of your routine, and not something that disrupts it. This is analogous to the learning of a difficult piano piece over the course of a year. Practising every second day in manageable segments is going to be far more effective than cramming in multiple hours of practice per day in the two months leading up to the piano recital.
So the moral of the story here is: If you are at any point in your journey towards medical school, and know for sure that it is what you want to do, speak to an Academic Advisor and start your UCAT preparation with MedView now!
READY TO IMPROVE IN YOUR UCAT?
How Often Should I Practise?
3, 4 or 5 hours of practice per day is not only impractical, but also suboptimal. UCAT study should ideally be moulded around your school study, because more often than not, school exit scores or GPA will be the first thing that selection boards look at, before ordering candidates based on their UCAT score. As such, the amount of time that each student dedicates towards preparation for the UCAT will vary. Furthermore, preparation should be goal driven. This means that you should be setting yourself performance goals (e.g. five abstract reasoning questions correct today) as opposed to time-based goals (20 minutes of abstract reasoning questions today).
What Preparation Materials are Best?
First and foremost, every student should have access to a question bank, where they can work through questions from each subset of the exam at their own pace. This being said, the gold standard of preparation for any standardised test is mock (practice) exams and 1-1 mentoring/tutoring. The more you are able to simulate an exam setting, the less likely you will be to cave to the stress on the day. In this way, you act to normalise the process of sitting the UCAT for yourself.
With respect to tutoring, students should be attempting questions on their own first, then taking the more difficult questions to a tutor in an effort to learn more time-efficient and effective strategies for dealing with the curve balls in the exam. Even an extra 10 questions worth of personalised MedView tutoring that other students preparing for the exam aren’t getting, may push you miles ahead of your competition. Percentile-based scoring can work both for and against you in this way, so make the commitment and invest in a good tutor who could slide you from 60th to 90th percentile without even knowing.
Overall, it is crucial that students approach this exam with the knowledge of how competitive the UCAT is designed to be!
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The UCAT
The UCAT, or the University Clinical Aptitude Test is the medical school admission test required for many universities in Australia and New Zealand. The UCAT is designed to assess applicants for the aptitude, attitudes and beliefs required of a doctor. In order to defeat the UCAT - we should understand what it is. First off, it’s a two hour computer based exam. There are 5 separately timed subtests - Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning and Situational Judgement. In this blog we break down each of the sections and offer guidance on how to prepare for this important exam.
Verbal Reasoning
Verbal Reasoning is meant to assess your ability to read something and draw appropriate conclusions. You can see why this would be important to a doctor - you’re part of a multidisciplinary team and will have to communicate effectively. In addition, doctors have to keep current with new research and draw reasonable conclusions from published findings. Decision making involves 11 text excerpts with 4 questions each, meaning this section has 44 questions in 21 minutes - that means an average of 29 seconds per question. That doesn’t even take reading the stem into account!
Decision Making
Decision Making is essentially data interpretation from graphs, tables, text and charts. You don’t need to have background knowledge on any subject, because part of what they’re testing is your ability to understand new information. Can you think of a time a doctor might have to do the same? This section has 29 questions in 31 minutes - an average of 64 seconds per question. Compare the timing of section to verbal reasoning, it’s more than double. Consider the length of time per question as an indication of how much the test writers want you to analyse.
Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning is a straightforward mathematics section - there are nine scenarios each with four questions. You’ll have access to an on screen calculator - which is functional but pretty clunky! You’ll have to strike a balance between using mental maths to be quick, and keeping your wits about you, and staying accurate. This section has 36 questions in 24 minutes - an average of 40 seconds per question. It’s not a lot of time to question your maths abilities!
Abstract Reasoning
Abstract Reasoning is used to evaluate your ability to locate patterns and understand logic, separate from your language abilities. If you’ve seen the guides online with pictures asking you to find a pattern - that’s abstract reasoning. This section is sometimes hard for students to grasp, because it’s such a different set of skills. It’s also probably the biggest struggle with time management. This section has 55 questions in 13 minutes - that’s only 14 seconds per question. Don’t even think about going into this section unprepared!
Situational Judgement
Situational Judgement assesses your judgement and character in different situations - the situations are usually clinical or education based. Either situations you’ve likely been in, or a situation you could be involved in future. Then you’ll have to evaluate the appropriateness, importance or consequences of the situation. It’s one way for universities to evaluate the characteristics that are important for future doctors! Situational Judgement has 69 questions in 26 minutes - an average of 25 seconds per question.
With so much to do - how can I set myself up for success?
Prepare
This sounds like a no brainer, but preparation is the most important thing you can do if you want to succeed on the UCAT. Going over questions is one thing but the most effective thing you can do is to practice under exam conditions. That means doing computer based exams - so when you get to test day, you know what to expect. Luckily MedView has a bank of questions.
Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Time is a precious resource when you’re preparing for medical school admissions - you have to continue doing well in your studies, prepare yourself for an interview, and master a new exam. There’s not infinite time - so you have to learn how to study smarter, not just harder. So many students waste their time by continuing to drill skills that they’ve already mastered. It’s important to identify the weak points that need more TLC.
Learn Skills
Each type of question requires a specific psychometric approach to understand and answer so quickly. Skills and strategies to identify the problem and solve the challenging question are essential for success. MedView has a range of 1:1 tutoring, group workshops, practice exams and questions alongside our spiral learning curriculum to help students develop the skills necessary to succeed in time conditions. Our UCAT students are 5x more likely to receive an interview offer.
Sitting full-length practice exams under simulated conditions is the most effective preparation for developing UCAT skills. As this will familiarise yourself with the extreme time pressures, as well as allowing you to practise concentrating on psychometric skills for two hours. It is also important to practice using the computer-based platform that will be used when you sit UCAT as well.
Seek Help
Find friends that have taken the test before and ask for their experience. Better yet, schedule a free Academic Assessment with MedView today! When you start your journey as a MedView student, you are allocated an Education Coordinator who has experience helping hundreds of students get into med school. They’ll help you stay on track with your goals, offer you support, and help you succeed on your path to medical school.
Next Steps
The UCAT is an important exam that is key to medical school admission for undergraduates. We recommend starting your UCAT preparation early and integrating it into your study load to give yourself the best opportunity to succeed. If you’d like to learn more about the UCAT or how to get into Medical School, check out our free eBooks and blogs!
- What is the UCAT?
- How Universities use your UCAT Results
- A Quick Guide to Australia Medicine eBook
- A Quick Guide to New Zealand Medicine eBook
- How to Prepare for the UCAT
- What UCAT scores will get me into med?
MedView offers a range of UCAT preparation courses as well as personalised 1:1 tutoring with our expert team. If you would like to know more about the UCAT and how MedView can help, get in touch today.
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What can you do before the year starts?
Before the year starts, it is vital that you understand that the journey to becoming a doctor is a long and arduous process. Medicine is a life-long commitment whose pathway extends beyond the 6 years of study. It includes a progression from a house officer to a registrar, and application onto training schemes if you opt for the surgical pathway.
The vast majority of people who apply for medicine, do not have a clear picture of what they want to do in the future. This uncertainty is not something to worry about now – you have plenty of time to figure out exactly what you want to do. There is something in medicine for everyone. If you are still uncertain about the medical pathway beyond the 6 years of study, I would recommend doing further research.
Another thing you can do over the summer break is to identify your motivation to become a doctor. If it’s for the money, you may not be in the correct profession - it will be at least 10-12 years until you start earning the big bucks that all doctors are known for! If you have an inherent nature to help people and seek to make our society healthier, then you are on the right track.
Once your head is in the right place, enjoy your summer! The year will belong, and you will have to make social sacrifices to make your studies a priority. Make the most of the time you have by seeing friends and family, as you will inevitably see less of them throughout the year. You are likely to experience burnout sometime during the year, so optimising your rest now is important.
The single most effective way to distance yourself from your competitors is to start early and hard. After you have rested throughout December and into the new year, it is time to get started and get ahead. The Flying Start Course offered by MedView was my ticket to success. It is a highly intensive programme starting in late January that covers the first 6 weeks of content for the three core papers in the first semester. The advantages of this course are numerous:
- The most valuable aspect of Flying Start is the content covered. As the first semester contains 3 out of the 4 core papers, it is so important to get a good start. An early lapse within the first few weeks can completely derail your entire year. Being exposed to similar content ahead of time builds your confidence and gives you the opportunity to begin learning before others.
- There is a radically different teaching style from high school to university. Flying Start emulates the style you are accustomed to, while simultaneously teaching university material. This eases your transition and places students into a more comfortable and familiar environment.
- You can meet other motivated people. You may have heard the horror stories of people sabotaging each other, taking their notes and hiding their bags. While these are mostly exaggerated, there will still be those who resort to other measures to gain an advantage. The people doing Flying Start will be motivated just like you, and eager to get ahead. Working together and building these strong relationships before the year starts means that you have a better support group in place. I have met several bright individuals who were passionate and together, we were able to navigate the difficult year and succeed as a group!
MedView believes in a holistic approach to medical school admissions, meaning we surround the student with a team of experts to help develop their candidacy and skills in all three major pillars in their journey to medical school, and now it’s even more accessible with the MedView Hub App!
Over the last decade there’s been a mass adoption of smartphones and a shift in the way people behave online and communicate. Australians are spending more time online, often using multiple screens, and consuming vast amounts of content each day. And it’s only going up!
Recent figures show that almost eight out of ten Australians use social media, and 87% of them use their mobile phones to access it. Fifty-nine percent of Australians access social media everyday or most days, and over a third of people check social media more than five times per day.
We often go online to chat with friends and family, share photos, or be entertained by cat videos. But the very same platforms we use to socialise can also be used to gather knowledge that we can apply in our offline lives. One of the areas where users can reap the benefits is online communities. MedView prides themselves on finding the best tutor, strategist or consultant for each student whether they be in Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom and having an online community platform allows even more core benefits for our students in a shorter amount of time. Now students can access over 320 tutors, strategists and consultants and get answers to their Synapse questions, interact in exclusive workshops, and most importantly make friends. The meaningful relationships with other members of the community increases knowledge and collective wisdom.
The MedView Hub App is our own online community platform for students, parents, tutors, and alumni to create a network of opportunities to participate in smart, focused conversation on specific medical school admissions topics (unlike the Instagram and Facebook chatter).
Over the last decade there’s been a mass adoption of smartphones and a shift in the way people behave online and communicate. Australians are spending more time online, often using multiple screens, and consuming vast amounts of content each day. And it’s only going up!
Recent figures show that almost eight out of ten Australians use social media, and 87% of them use their mobile phones to access it. Fifty-nine percent of Australians access social media everyday or most days, and over a third of people check social media more than five times per day.
We often go online to chat with friends and family, share photos, or be entertained by cat videos. But the very same platforms we use to socialise can also be used to gather knowledge that we can apply in our offline lives. One of the areas where users can reap the benefits is online communities. MedView prides themselves on finding the best tutor, strategist or consultant for each student whether they be in Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom and having an online community platform allows even more core benefits for our students in a shorter amount of time. Now students can access over 320 tutors, strategists and consultants and get answers to their Synapse questions, interact in exclusive workshops, and most importantly make friends. The meaningful relationships with other members of the community increases knowledge and collective wisdom.
The MedView Hub App is our own online community platform for students, parents, tutors, and alumni to create a network of opportunities to participate in smart, focused conversation on specific medical school admissions topics (unlike the Instagram and Facebook chatter).
Find out more and begin your journey to medical school by speaking with a MedView Academic Advisor for free today!
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